A Voice for Politically Incorrect Speeches

Who’d knew Norton not only provdies antivirus security but it also blocks “hate” websites?

Yeah, it happened to A Voice for Men, for apparently being that – a ‘hate’ site, as Paul Elam notes:

It has recently come to my attention that a number of websites that address issues affecting the lives of men and boys, including avoiceformen.com, have been targeted as “hate sites” by your company. In this I am referring to one of your products, Norton Internet Security.

As I have had confirmed from multiple sources, individuals that attempt to access this site though your screening software are given an “access denied” message, along with the claim that avoiceformen.com is a “known hate site.”

I can’t stress enough how against censoring websites -or anything- I am.

Is not that I visit A Voice for Men (which I don’t, and I wouldn’t have if someone on my Twitter feed hadn’t tweeted about this), but even if I did, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that I’m intelligent enough to make my own mind about which sites are hate-mongering webpages and which ones are not. You see, I trust my judgement that way, and excuse me if I feel a little bit objectified –yes, objectified– when someone denies me agency in my own life and says they know better what’s best for me!

I got a hunch about who might be behind this, ‘advising’ Norton which sites are good and which aren’t. In case there’s any self-proclaimed feminist from the Atheist/Skeptic community gloating, I’d like to offer you a final thought.

Do you consider Atheism to be a politically incorrect paradigm in today’s society? If so, you can see how this can come back at you, right? Theists often accuse us of being hateful, and atrocious and whatever word they can find to make us look bad – and some times, they get their lie accross, and someone believes them.

So, as long as we’re holding a politically incorrect point of view on religion, I’d advise you to fight for the unconfortable messages not to be censored. Once tha’ts changed, you can go back to supporting censorship, while I’ll always stand on the side of free speech, even if it is a speech I am revolted by!

A security program should block only those sites known to contain malware–NOT offensive content. The inevitable, and unanswerable, question “Who decides what’s offensive?” is reason enough to reject this feature.

Excellent point about atheism itself being politically incorrect. Many Christians would love to see atheist sites blocked as well. I may disagree with much of what A Voice for Men does, but I do believe in protecting their right to do it.